


Such Beauty Underneath

by blarbles



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Five Years Later, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Nurse!Derek, PTSD, Slow-ish burn, Trauma, and then some nice times, canon compliant through 3b, grad student!Stiles, some very sad times, started out as a fun coffee shop au and then got serious sry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:23:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarbles/pseuds/blarbles
Summary: Stiles Stilinski may not be the last person Derek expects to see behind the counter of his favorite coffee shop, but he’s definitely in the top ten. Top three, if he’s being honest. A few years ago, he'd have ducked out before Stiles noticed him. But it isn’t a few years ago.





	Such Beauty Underneath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some points of business!!!!!!!!!  
> ~this started off as a little coffee shop au I was just writing for fun and to pass the time but then it quickly became Serious and Emo so thaaaat would be why I started this off hoping to update quickly but now it is WHAT IT IS because it wasn't meant to be serious but......it's serious SORRY, and thus it might be a little slower than I'd hoooooped  
> ~I usually ignore the things in canon I don't like but I wanted to experiment with writing something where I had to include all the elements I usually ignore? idk it sounded like a fun writing exercise and INDEED: THUS IT IS   
> ~I promise to try to update as often as possible!!!!! If WIPs aren't your thing nooo worries, they are very stressful both for you and for me your hapless writer  
> ~General canon-compliant triggers for violence, reference to non-con, etc etc. Nothing outside of canonnnnnnnn   
> ~Did I just invent a fake town that I stuck in somewhere on the coast of Northern California around Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz but neither of those towns because writing in an existing setting is annoying and hard and constraining? No. just kidding yessssssss  
> ~THANKS for READING you are GREAT

_you're breaking down and I can tell it's deep_  
_There's a tidal wave that's rushing towards the beach_  
_But your anger has such beauty underneath_  
Delta Rae, "The Meaning of It All"

~ ~ ~

Stiles Stilinski may not be the last person Derek expects to see behind the counter of his favorite coffee shop, but he’s definitely in the top ten. Top three, if he’s being honest. 

A few years ago, he'd have ducked out before Stiles noticed him. But, for better or worse, it isn’t a few years ago. He gets in line.

In his apron and long-sleeved plaid, Stiles sticks out from the messy-haired surfers, retirees, and wintertime beach bums. Glasses with navy frames bring out the gold flecks in his eyes. He chats up the customers and has more than a few of them laughing when they leave the counter. Then he sees Derek.

If Derek didn’t know him better, he’d have thought Stiles was completely nonplussed by his presence. As it is, Derek doesn’t miss the hitch in his breath and sudden tension in his shoulders. In the second it takes Derek to notice, Stiles pulls himself together and flings a hand to his chest.

“Why, Derek Hale, as I live and breathe. To what do I owe the immense and staggeringly unexpected pleasure of your company?”

“Stiles, what the hell are you doing in my coffee shop?”

“Your coffee shop?” Stiles raises his eyebrows, gestures expansively. “I never pictured you as a real estate magnate, not even in your reclusive old age.”

“You know what I mean.” 

“Of all the coffee shops in all the towns in California…” Stiles drawls. 

“You’re a horrible Bogart.”

“And you’re a horrible customer. What are you ordering?” 

“Stiles. Answer the question. What. Are you doing. In my coffee shop.”

The woman in line behind Derek sighs loudly. He barely resists the urge to turn around and glare at her; Stiles notices and has the gall to grin.

Stiles opens his mouth to throw some obnoxious snark his way, and Derek decides to beat him to it. “Sixteen-ounce white mocha. Extra chocolate, two shots of hazelnut, and caramel on top.”

Stiles blinks. "Incredible. If I’d known you were downing sixteen ounces of liquid diabetes every day, the leather jacket-eyebrow-Camaro combination would have immediately lost all power to intimidate. Are you serious?”

The woman clucks her tongue and Derek rolls his eyes, at her and Stiles both. Stiles’ grin widens to a smirk. He grabs a cup, twirls a pen between his fingers, and jots down Derek’s order. 

“Lovely seeing you, Derek,” Stiles says as he rings him up. “And that’s your cue to say likewise, I’m sure, it’s always a joy, or something similarly charming.” 

“Something similarly charming.” Derek pockets his change. Stiles snorts. 

He waits for his drink at the far end of the shop and watches Stiles continue to charm customers—he somehow draws a smile, then a laugh, from the annoying woman behind him in line—until another barista calls, “Uh…Wolverine? I’ve got a double hazelnut white mocha with caramel for Wolverine?”

Stiles’ grin is bright behind the counter. Derek pointedly ignores him.

It isn’t until he’s out the door and halfway down the street that he notices the barely legible phone number scribbled along the cup’s edge.

 

On his way back from his run the next morning, Derek briefly considers trying another coffee shop. Maybe the shack nearer the beach or the truck that’s been parking in the Episcopalian parking lot. But after five years living out of a suitcase, Derek feels he’s earned his right to habits. Besides, he’ll be damned if Stiles Stilinski, of all people, scares him into the capitalist void of burnt Starbucks. 

Stiles isn’t behind the counter this time. He’s sitting at a table against the full-length window through which customers can see the faint line of the foggy ocean. Stiles’ red plaid from yesterday is unbuttoned, revealing a soft grey Henley. His glasses are pushed up on his forehead and he’s muttering to himself while typing on a battered, sticker-studded MacBook. 

At the counter, Derek orders his regular and a 24-ounce drip coffee. He pauses to grab a handful of sugar packets and swizzle stick, then heads to Stiles’ table, where he sets the drip next to Stiles’ laptop. 

Stiles doesn’t even look up. He jabs an accusatory finger across the table, then tugs the coffee closer. Ripping the top off a sugar packet, he says, “This better be an apology for not texting me.” 

Derek shrugs and sips his mocha. “Don’t have a phone.”

“Don’t have a—seriously?” He tears the remaining sugar packets in half, upends them all into the coffee, and ignores the stick, instead rotating a finger in quick, sloppy circles just above the cup. The liquid churns so fast it nearly sloshes over the edge.

Derek’s eyebrows go up. “You’re not afraid people will see you?” 

“If there’s one thing magic’s taught me apart from be afraid, be very afraid, it’s that people aren’t half as observant as you think.”

“Until they are.” 

“Mm,” he says, and Derek can’t tell if it’s ambivalence or agreement. Stiles downs what looks like half of the steaming cup of coffee, then sets it down so he can resume clacking madly.

“Writing?”

“Researching.” He looks across the table to meet Derek’s curious stare. “I’m a journalist. Well, journalist in training. The master's ran out of funding for mentored capstone projects, so they kind of turned us loose for a semester.”

“And you just ended up here?”

“Thought I’d write about Mavericks.” If Derek were a bitten werewolf, he wouldn’t have noticed the minuscule uptick in Stiles’ heartbeat; he’s telling the truth—mostly. 

“Because the world really needs more Mavericks coverage.”

“I’ll have you know I’m actually not the world’s worst nature writer. You spend enough time obsessively cataloguing the habits and behaviors of the northern Californian werewolf and you pick up a few writing skills.”

“Okay, you’re getting a master's in journalism. So why are you working at a coffee shop?”

“Uh, did you miss the phrase 'master's in journalism'?” He slurps more coffee and narrowly misses spilling some drops on the laptop—he only doesn’t by flicking his wrist, bouncing the droplets away from his keyboard with some ward or other. 

Derek has his own coffee; he should probably leave. But it’s not like he has anything better to do, so he figures he might as well stay and keep an eye on the kid, make sure he doesn’t draw any attention to himself with his shorthand magic. Besides, Stiles’ partial truth is tugging at the corner of his brain now. It’s going to needle him until he figures out why. 

While Stiles mutters and types and clicks and slurps, Derek scans his laptop stickers. They range from the absurd (a picture of a Texas politician with the caption “this man ate my dad”) to the political (“make America green again”), the personal (a bi pride flag with “I like girls. I like boys. I’m not confused” written on each segment), and the mildly insulting (“read a fucking book”). There’s also an artsy little doodle with a crescent moon swirled in clouds that reminds Derek of a triskelion. 

After a bit, he lets his gaze cant up at Stiles. He looks better than the last time Derek saw him—which, honestly, isn’t hard; most corpses looked better than he had. 

Most of the time, Derek tells himself he’s spent the last five years running to shake off the shackles of Beacon Hills, site of too many bad memories, Laura’s grave, a burned-up cabin and his own abused dreams. The trauma that writhed inside him, snakelike, until he couldn’t stand to stay in one place any longer. But nights when he’s feeling uncharacteristically honest, he can admit to himself that half the reason he ran was to escape those sunken, red-rimmed eyes, bone-white face and trembling hands as Stiles limped willingly into a white-out thick with snow and swords and no desire to walk back out. He remembers Lydia’s flaming hair spilling over Stiles’ shoulders as she propped up his failing body, and he’s forgiven her—forgiven himself, forgiven all of them—for a lot of things, but he still can’t exorcise that final image from his head. 

When Derek finishes his coffee and stands to leave, he thinks Stiles is too absorbed to notice. He tosses his cup in the recycling bin and starts heading towards the door—

“Hale! Hey, Derek! Buy a phone, you asshole!” 

Derek flips him off without turning around so Stiles can’t see his answering smile.


End file.
